If you think you can vibe code iPhone apps and slip them through the back door, think again.

Apple has recently cracked down on vibe coding apps that were bypassing its review process to rapidly deploy on iOS. This has even included banning the app Anything, a vibe coding platform that launched in November 2025 and allowed users to create their own apps far more rapidly than with traditional software development tools.

Dhruv Amin, CEO of Anything, told The Information that the platform helped enable its users to publish thousands of apps in the App Store in its first couple of months, before Apple's App Store review team started rejecting its updates in mid-December for violating Guideline 2.5.2 of the App Store rules. That guideline basically states that apps need to be self-contained and shouldn't spawn other apps.

This has also impacted other vibe coding apps including Replit, Vibecode, and Bitrig, but none of those three have been banned or removed from the App Store.

A growing phenomenon coined by an Andrej Karpathy tweet from February 2025, vibe coding has taken the world by storm over the past 14 months. It has dramatically increased the amount of software being created by removing the need to know complex coding languages and allowing anyone to create custom software by simply describing it in natural language.

In a statement to The Deep View, Apple emphasized:

• It is not against vibe coding and has no official policy banning vibe coding apps
• Bypassing the App Store's privacy and security safeguards that protect users is what happens when apps deliver unreviewed software within an existing app
• When an app falls out of compliance, the App Store team explains the violation and works with the software vendor to bring the app into compliance; for example, in the case of Replit, the team has had multiple conversations in 2026 and is continuing to work toward a resolution

Regarding the Anything case, Apple had no comment at this time, but we will update this story as we learn more.

Our Deeper View

I have to expect Apple to be moving toward an "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" strategy when it comes to vibe coding. The company is already halfway there with platforms like Swift that streamline the process of building apps. With its new Google partnership to use Gemini models, Apple will have the AI firepower needed to launch its own vibe-coding tools built on Swift and potentially even a lighter version of Xcode. Strategically, this would also be a perfect fit for Apple's brand mission of empowering creativity at the individual worker level. And Apple does it through its own tools, I expect it would also streamline the process of submitting vibe-coded apps for App Store review. Let's hope a move like that would also cascade to other vibe coding apps like Replit and Anything.